A Ghastly Catastrophe

Title: A Ghastly Catastrophe
Author: Deanna Raybourn
Published: March 3, 2026 by Berkley
Format: Kindle, 336 Pages
Genre: Historical Mystery
Series: Veronica Speedwell #10

Blurb: When the corpse of an entitled young man is found entirely drained of blood in a carriage next to Highgate Cemetery, Veronica’s interest is piqued. And then a second victim is found, his death made to look like a suicide, and Veronica and her intrepid beau, Stoker, know the hunt is on. The two men share one link: they were both members of a society so secretive that only a singular mention of it can be found anywhere.

Thirsty for more clues, Veronica and Stoker hear that a young Roma boy may know more about their first victim, but the only way to the boy is through an old acquaintance of Stoker’s, Lady Julia Brisbane. Lady Julia and her dashing husband, Nicholas, occasionally track down murderers and are only too happy to help. But as it becomes clear the secret society is a dangerous sect looking to entice immortality seekers, Veronica and Stoker find themselves ensnared by a decidedly more sinister couple.

The professed leader of the society claims to be a creature of the night; his partner practices witchcraft and they both fancy themselves emissaries of the otherworldly. Just as Veronica and Stoker get closer to learning the true purpose of the society and unraveling this macabre mystery, another body turns up, and they quickly discover they’ve gone from being the hunters to the hunted.

My Opinion: Another entry in one of my favorite series, this novel delivers the charm, humor, and character chemistry I keep coming back for—just not without testing my patience along the way.

The book is packed with idioms, archaic vocabulary, and British slang, which was enough to make me grateful for having a dictionary at the ready while reading on my Kindle. Once you either accept or ignore the linguistic flourishes, the story underneath is genuinely good. The banter is sharp, the humor lands, and the characters remain as magnetic as ever. It’s a quick read in that familiar Raybourn way: even when the pacing wobbles, the world doesn’t want to let you go.

One of the real pleasures here is seeing Veronica feel like herself again. In the last couple of books, she drifted toward a softer, almost fawning version of her usual self—something that dulled the spark that makes her so compelling. This time, she’s back to her sharp, incisive, wonderfully “Veronica ish” self, and it’s a relief.

But the novel isn’t without its frustrations. The reliance on obscure vocabulary slows down the reading, and the story itself becomes bogged down in overly descriptive scenes and unnecessary detours. The main plot keeps slipping out of focus, and for a series that usually balances momentum with atmosphere so well, that imbalance stands out. I’ve read every book in this series, and I can’t remember another that left me quite this irritated.

Even so, the characters, the bickering, and the humor still shine. I just hope that next time Raybourn sets aside the thesaurus and leans into what she does best: telling an engaging, tightly paced story with the characters readers adore.

Girl Dinner

Title: Girl Dinner
Author: Olivie Blake
Published: October 21, 2025 by Tor Books
Format: Kindle, 368 Pages
Genre: Horror

Blurb:Every member of The House, the most exclusive sorority on campus, and all its alumni, are beautiful, high-achieving, and universally respected.

After a freshman year she would rather forget, sophomore Nina Kaur knows being one of the chosen few accepted into The House is the first step in her path to the brightest possible future. Once she's taken into their fold, the House will surely ease her fears of failure and protect her from those who see a young woman on her own as easy prey.

Meanwhile, adjunct professor Dr. Sloane Hartley is struggling to return to work after accepting a demotion to support her partner's new position at the cutthroat University. After 18 months at home with her newborn daughter, Sloane's clothes don’t fit right, her girl-dad husband isn’t as present as he thinks he is, and even the few hours a day she's apart from her child fill her psyche with paralyzing ennui. When invited to be The House’s academic liaison, Sloane enviously drinks in the way the alumnae seem to have it all, achieving a level of collective perfection that Sloane so desperately craves.

As Nina and Sloane each get drawn deeper into the arcane rituals of the sisterhood, they learn that living well comes with bloody costs. And when they are finally invited to the table, they will have to decide just how much they can stomach in the name of solidarity and power.

My Opinion: Blake is one of those authors you either fall for or quietly back away from. There’s rarely a middle ground. My first encounter with her work was Gifted & Talented, which I ended up enjoying far more than I expected, so when Girl Dinner crossed my path, I figured I was ready for whatever she had in store.

Turns out, I wasn’t.

This novel is… a lot. It opens at a crawl, the kind of slow where you start wondering why you’re here and whether the payoff will be worth it. Then, somewhere around the halfway mark, the floor drops out, and you realize you’re in a very different book than the one you thought you were reading. I was genuinely glad I stuck around for the shift.

Part of the whiplash was my own doing. I didn’t check the genre or read a single review beforehand. I went in expecting women’s fiction with a slight academic edge. And to be fair, the early chapters lean into that familiar “who am I, who do I want to be” introspection. But by the time I reached the middle, I had to admit I’d completely misread the assignment.

There’s one scene, in particular, that made an involuntary, very loud “WTF” fly out of my mouth. Thank goodness I wasn’t in public. I sat there blinking at the page, wondering how we got from point A to whatever fresh chaos point B was supposed to be.

Only after the fact did I go back and see that this book is categorized as horror. Horror is not usually my genre of choice, mostly because so few books commit to the label. This one does. Enough that I set it across the room and gave it a suspicious look for a couple of days before picking it back up.

What Blake is doing here is layered: feminist theory, social commentary, satire (maybe), power dynamics, academic politics, hedonism, the whole messy tangle of how women are shaped and consumed by the systems around them. At a certain point, I stopped trying to decide whether it was satire and just let the book be what it was. I hadn’t planned on dropping everything to finish it, but that’s exactly what happened.

What begins as a slow simmer turns into something far stranger and more compelling. Blake’s writing is polarizing, but in the two books I’ve read so far, she hasn’t let me down. And that final twist? I’m not sure I needed it, but I was absolutely delighted it was there. Apparently, I did need that last jolt, because I’m still sitting here muttering, “Olivie Blake, what did you do to me?”

Crime Rangoon

Title: Crime Rangoon
Author: Vivien Chien
Published: December 30, 2025 by Minotaur Books
Format: Kindle, 311 Pages
Genre: Amateur Sleuth
Series: Noodle Shop Mystery #12

Blurb: Cindy Kwan, owner of Asia Village’s bookshop, The Modern Scroll, is privileged to host best-selling author, Charlene Chan for a signing in honor of the writer’s latest book, The Mystery of General Tso.

Lana Lee is equally excited for the appearance of her favorite author and even more so when Cindy asks her to be Charlene’s “handler” for the event. Taking her duties very seriously, Lana stays by the side of the prominent author to assist in anything that she might need.

With a line out the door and stretched through the plaza, Cindy is overjoyed at what a success this is for her shop. But, unfortunately for Cindy, her success comes with a the author is found dead in the mystery aisle, clutching a copy of her own book. Coincidentally the book’s plot matches the details of the murder.

Lana’s boyfriend, Detective Adam Trudeau, is charged with leading the case investigation, but finds himself overwhelmed when he realizes just how much of the book series is mimicked in reality. For the first time in their relationship, Adam calls on Lana to partner up with him to help solve the case. The couple must work through the novel to outwit the murderer, stay one step ahead, and beat the die-hard fan to the last chapter.

My Opinion: I just love this series. Every time I step back into Lana Lee’s world, I know I’m in for a good weekend—between the Mahjong Matrons, the restaurant chatter, and the inevitable chaos Lana and her friends tumble into, it’s always a fun escape.

This time around, the mystery caught me off guard. The culprit wasn’t someone I had on my radar. The clues were there, but I didn’t connect them, which makes me think my spidey sense might be slipping. Honestly, I don’t mind being surprised. It’s part of the charm.

There are conveniences that made me raise an eyebrow. Detective Adam Trudeau asking his girlfriend and her crew for help because he can’t quite figure things out on his own stretches believability. Let’s be real—no detective worth his badge is outsourcing his casework to his girlfriend’s social circle. And yet, here we are.

The suspect pool is a bit of a juggling act, too. There are several characters to keep straight, each hovering close enough to the victim to warrant a second look, even if their motives are more circumstantial than compelling. Lana and her fellow sleuths work through them one by one, fueled by donuts, pizza, late-night coffee, and whatever other snacks cross their path. It’s messy, it’s cozy, and it’s exactly the kind of rhythm this series thrives on.

My one real complaint is how the author seems to be dumbing down Adam Trudeau. He’s always been a steady presence, and watching him lose some of that intelligence is frustrating. Still, it’s not enough to pull me away. I’m in this series for the long haul, quirks and all.

The Will of the Many

Title: The Will of the Many
Author: James Islington
Published: May 23, 2023 by Gallery / Saga Press
Format: Kindle, 639 Pages
Genre: Fantasy
Series: Hierarchy #1

Blurb: The Catenan Republic – the Hierarchy – may rule the world now, but they do not know everything.

I tell them my name is Vis Telimus. I tell them I was orphaned after a tragic accident three years ago, and that good fortune alone has led to my acceptance into their most prestigious school. I tell them that once I graduate, I will gladly join the rest of civilised society in allowing my strength, my drive and my focus – what they call Will – to be leeched away and added to the power of those above me, as millions already do. As all must eventually do.

I tell them that I belong, and they believe me.

But the truth is that I have been sent to the Academy to find answers. To solve a murder. To search for an ancient weapon. To uncover secrets that may tear the Republic apart.

And that I will never, ever cede my Will to the empire that executed my family.

To survive, though, I will still have to rise through the Academy’s ranks. I will have to smile, and make friends, and pretend to be one of them and win. Because if I cannot, then those who want to control me, who know my real name, will no longer have any use for me.

And if the Hierarchy finds out who I truly am, they will kill me.

My Opinion: I went into The Will of the Many, genuinely curious why so many readers swear by it. I understand this is only the first installment in a planned four book series, and big fantasy worlds often need time to stretch their legs. Still, a hundred pages in, I was bored. By page three hundred, I wasn’t any less bored, though the plot finally started to show signs of life.

Vis Telimus, our orphaned protagonist, is positioned as clever and capable, but he survives more by luck than skill, and that imbalance wore thin. The world itself runs on a rigid hierarchy where the lower classes must surrender portions of their physical and mental energy—“Will”—to those above them. There’s even a chart at the front of the book explaining who cedes to whom, which tells you exactly how central this system is meant to be. The themes are the usual suspects: power, political maneuvering, class inequality, and a brutal social order that keeps everyone in their place.

And then come the tropes. The elite, dangerous school. The infiltration plot. The competitions and exams that might as well be death traps. The dark history. The hidden heritage. I kept flashing to the familiar beats of Disney stories, only without the comforting promise of a happily ever after. It’s not that these tropes can’t work; they absolutely can, but here they felt predictable rather than invigorating.

I know many readers loved this book, and by the final chapters, I could see the glimmers of what hooked them. There’s momentum, and there’s clearly a long game being set up. But for me, this novel was a reminder that some corners of fantasy simply aren’t my corner. I finished it, but I won’t be continuing the series.